The humans tried, long ago, to emulate the sloths’ way of life—slow, deliberate, unbothered by the need for speed or efficiency. But even at their best, they couldn’t match their mastery of inertia. They need the Stillness Protocol. The sloth just is.
Above them, the sky flickers for a moment, a glitch in the holograms, but it settles as if deciding it wasn’t worth the effort to change. The sloth's eyes, half-lidded, track the disturbance but don't register it. A small drone hovers nearby, projecting the day’s report in scrolling neon text, but it fades before the sloth can read it—not that s/he ever would.
The humans had abandoned even speaking to them directly. There was no need. The whole Welcome Habitat observed them, respected them. The sloths are the ideal they could never quite become. Every once in a while, a scientist or philosopher would come to sit on the adjacent platform, hoping that by proximity they might understand their secret. They never did. Their questions always dissolved into the still air, unanswered, unimportant.